Washington, D.C., is implementing a new campaign intended to crack down on fare evasion. This bill, like many others of its kind, will serve as a tool deployed in the ongoing war against the Black working class by increasing policing and punishing those who cannot bear the hardship of the exorbitant cost of D.C. public transportation.
To make good on the promise implicit in the "Secure DC Omnibus Crime Bill,” to intensify its war on the Black working class, the DC government is now targeting anyone who can’t afford to pay for public transportation.
In December 2024, a new enforcement campaign was launched called “Operation Fare Pays for Your Service” professing an intention to decrease fare evasion on DC’s Metrobus system. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) argues that increased fare enforcement is necessary after reporting that more than 70% of metrobus riders do not pay their fare, and claiming a $50 million dollar loss in annual revenue. Metrobus is a service operated by WMATA, a tri-jurisdictional public transit agency providing transportation services in DC, Maryland and Virginia. The agency receives both state and federal funding and also operates its own police force. The campaign of repression will utilize both uniformed and plain clothes officers, as well as video surveillance, to identify, remove and cite passengers who don’t pay their fare. These tactics are being implemented at bus stops and stations with the highest levels of fare evasion.
Fundamentally, a campaign that only seeks to increase enforcement will ignore the root issues—- poverty, chronic unemployment, rising costs of living, and access to housing, all of which make paying the fare a significant challenge for many Black working class people. This campaign is the cynical implementation of a provision the draconian DC Crime Bill,” essentially a declaration of war by DC’s political elite class against the Black working class. Such a publicly funded enterprise as public transportation should be a free public good and a human right. Fare evasions are an expression of the people's instinctive understanding of this fact.
Pan African Community Action (PACA) asserts that Black communities are a domestic colony in the U.S. Our exploitation is enforced by a militarized police occupation that is used to control, repress and maintain our subjugation. WMATA’s fare enforcement campaign will further entrench this colonial relationship by targeting Black working class people for revenue, confining those who cannot afford the fare to their neighborhoods, and instigating more tense encounters between the colonized and the occupation forces, the police.
Metro financials have called it “financially unsustainable” for bus riders to avoid paying their fare, but these priorities are backward. What is unsustainable are the worsening economic conditions produced by capitalist exploitation, which push people into poverty and desperation. One out of 4 Black residents in DC are living in poverty. The increasing cost of living in DC continues to outpace the minimum wage. Across the country, the price of basic necessities such as housing, groceries, healthcare and childcare, has also gone up significantly in the last several years. At the same time, the district government is committing $515 million dollars to a new sports arena in downtown Chinatown and $463 million for a new Jail. DC’s 2025 budget also includes increased spending to fund “the immediate provisions of Secure DC” and “increase the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime-fighting capabilities.” Again, the DC government is deliberately ignoring the root issues that lead to fare evasion and choosing to invest in corporate development, incarceration, and more policing.
The inability to access affordable travel confines people to their communities, making it difficult to commute to work, seek healthcare, or leave their neighborhood for groceries or other necessities. For example, expectant Black mothers in DC are already struggling to get doctor’s appointments during their pregnancies, sometimes taking two buses to see their providers. There are only four full service grocery stores in Southeast D.C., meaning that people will have to pay additional bus fares if they need to travel for fresh groceries. Increased enforcement will disproportionately target the lowest income workers in DC. Approximately, 21% of workers at or near poverty commute using the bus, compared to just 3% of D.C.’s highest earners. No one should be forced to choose between paying the fare or not getting the resources and assistance they need.
This repressive campaign began just a month before the closure of the DC Circulator, which ended its service on December 31st. The DC Circulator buses were similar to shuttle buses, operating on a fixed route and schedule that ran between the city's main attractions and some of the more popular neighborhoods. Although the Circulator was initially intended for visitors to DC, as public transit it also became useful to working class DC residents in areas like what is known as "East of the River" for accessing the more metropolitan areas. Along with increased fare enforcement, eliminating the Circulator means fewer accessible options for travelers from those areas and longer commute times. Ending the Circulator also means safety and health concerns for seniors and school aged children who may have longer walks after dark to their closest bus stop, especially during the winter months.
Despite the obvious safety risks created by their own policies, DC officials claim that increased fare enforcement will improve public safety, shamelessly implying that those who evade the fare represent a threat to the wellbeing of others. They know better. More policing on the bus will lead to unlawful detainment, brutality, and violence against Black working class people. WMATA’s campaign began by targeting bus stops and stations in Black communities, such as Minnesota Avenue Station and deploying special police and video surveillance. Under the pretense of fare enforcement, police in DC will have more leeway to criminalize and surveil working class Black communities. Black people are already disproportionately targeted by racist stop and frisk practices that do not improve public safety. Ninety-four percent of police use of force in DC is also committed against Black people. In fact, fare enforcement on Metrorail and Metrobuses between 2016 and 2018, was shown to result in significant racial disparities. According to a 2018 report, 91% of all metro citations were given to Black people and only 8% to white people, despite no evidence that Black people committed fare evasion at a higher rate. More than 30% of these stops were at Anacostia and Gallery Place stations, and primarily targeted Black people, particularly Black youth. There’s no reason to believe that these repressive and brutal tactics won’t continue during the city’s latest operation.
Access to community resources such as transportation, and the freedom to travel without police repression is essential to our right to self determination as African people. Transportation, like all other institutions should be under the direct democratic control of the communities that utilize it. Rules and laws regarding the cost and accessibility of transportation systems should not be imposed on our communities by elected representatives who are only agents for the setter-colonial ruling class. Instead, decisions must be made through a people’s centered participatory process that empowers us to define and shape public transportation in line with the interests of the African (Black) community.
Towards this end, PACA is working to jumpstart informed positive action programs that promote self-determination for African (Black) people in DC and meet our material needs. Fundamentally, the right to transportation is a question of power. To ensure our communities can exercise the right to transportation, we must get organized to fight for power and community control over all such institutions impacting our lives.
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Pan-African Community Action, PACA is a grassroots group of African/Black people organizing for community based power and a member organization of Black Alliance for Peace.
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